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Hebrew teaching to be expanded in the Gaza Strip

“Know Thine Enemy” wrote Sun Tzu in The Art of War. Children in classrooms across the Gaza strip will soon be putting this theory to practice by learning Hebrew, according to Hamas.

Teaching of the language will be expanded in government schools - around half the schools in Gaza. A faculty of Hebrew studies is being set up at the pro-Hamas Islamic University. Arabic is already compulsory in Israeli schools.

Soumaya al-Nakhala, a senior Hamas education ministry official, told Reuters: "Expanding [Hebrew] teaching comes as a result of our plan and meeting greater demand by students to learn Hebrew. They want to learn the language of their enemy so they can avoid their tricks and evil.”

Many of the 1.5 million Gazans used to speak the language of Israel, as they were labourers there. Since 1994, when Israel started preventing Gazans from crossing its borders, this number fell dramatically. Today only around 50,000 Gazans speak some Hebrew - often picked up from their experience as prisoners in Israel.

“That question about language is very important. One can ask of the Israelis who learn Arabic. Language is a window to another person's/groups' point of view, and may promote peace as well as understanding the enemy,” commented Camelia Suleiman, author of “Language and Identity in the Israel-Palestine Conflict.”

Hamas may be realising the importance of languages in the “war of information” with Israel. During Netanyahu’s recent bombardment of Gaza, an Israeli social media campaign tweeted videos and statements on the conflict in many languages, including Arabic. Recently arrived migrants to Israel were recruited to spread support of the war in their own languages through the media. The Israeli Foreign Ministry already has a YouTube channel in Arabic. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has even started tweeting in Arabic.

“There is no doubt that one of the most salient elements of the recent changes in the Middle East has been the role of communications technology,” Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Ministry Spokesman Gal Ilan told The Algemeiner in December. “We believe that public diplomacy initiatives – by virtue of internet and social media – have the power to reveal Israel’s true face and reach people’s hearts and minds and to effect Israel’s image among the Arab communities.”

Ofir Gendelman, the Israeli foreign ministry's spokesman to the Arab media, talks about the ceasefire with Hamas

It seems Hamas agrees with Ilan. Teaching Hebrew is a foothold in shaping the narrative of Israeli media. Even the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas's armed wing, now tweet in the "language of the enemy."

As for individual Gazans, hopefully they will have more of a chance to tell their own stories and engage with Israelis on an equal linguistic footing. At the very least, Gazan children toiling over Hebrew verb tables can take comfort that their learning is easier than it was for its first student. Itamar Ben-Avi, the language’s first native speaker, was taught only modern Hebrew as a child in the late 19th century - a language his father had only just formulated. Unable to communicate with or understand other children, a dog was his only companion.

On Tuesday night, Abdalaziz Alhamza, from the Syrian campaign organisation Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently (RBSS), received the prestigious Marie Colvin Award at the British Journalism Awards on behalf of the group.

RBSS has been reporting from the northern Syrian city, Islamic State's de facto capital, since 2014 on the violence carried out both by the extremist group and the regime of the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The independent organisation comprises 18 journalists based in Raqqa who are supported by 10 more journalists, who publish and translate their findings between Arabic and English, and help their reports reach a wider global audience. The RBSS Twitter feed has almost 70,000 followers, and their Facebook page has over 560,000 likes, marking them as a major news source for the area.

Speaking at the British Journalism Awards on Tuesday, Alhamza said: “In 2014, we realised two important things: the first is that the outside world was not going to help us, and the second is that we had to do something. Anything. So we created RBSS.”

Alhamza further explained the campaign group's aims:

“Our goal was not only to expose IS criminality, but also to resist them. We did that by capturing and distributing images and videos of life in Raqqa under IS.”

“My colleagues and I never thought or even could imagine the level of suffering our people has been subjected to in the last five years. We learned the hard way that freedom doesn’t come cheap.”

“The scenes of extreme violence and humiliation the group visited on our city’s people. We wanted to make sure the world – even if it wasn’t going to help us – knew what was going on.

Though constantly living under threat, Alhamza’s speech last night showed the pride and importance that RBSS place on publishing the horrors of daily life within Syria.

“Our work shows that we can fight arms with words, and that ultimately is the only way to defeat them, and IS knows it.